A long time ago (OK not THAT long), I headed off to college far from home. This week I helped my eldest son do the same thing and it got me thinking about how we help our children be brave.

Years ago, when I was a senior in high school, I went to a college fair. There I heard from some Christian colleges far from my home state of Ohio. As one of the admissions officers got up to talk about a college in Minnesota, I sensed God speak a simple sentence to my heart: “This is the one.” I almost cried as deep peace settled on me.

Now, I’d never been to Minnesota. I didn’t know anyone in Minnesota. But this college had the major I was looking for (Mass Communications, Theatre) and had an atmosphere that sounded nice. And so with the absolute faith that God was directing my steps, I headed off to college 15 hours from home.

I stood in the kitchen doing his dishes while he carefully re-sculpted a clay figure for the final scene of his movie and told me stories of things he’s learned on the internet. I should have made him do his own chores. But it’s the last week of me listening to everything and nothing each day. It’s the last week before I send my baby off into the world as a growed-up human. And I’m savoring every moment.

Our job as moms is to work ourselves out of a job. I’ve said that for years. Let me tell you, knowing and doing are quite different in this case. I’m learning from other moms in my life with kids older than mine that it’s not quite the whole picture. In the best of worlds, they will still need us. They just need us differently.

I’m sending this child off to film school over 13 hours away. So many what-ifs have plagued me since he chose this school. But my doubts are a little quieter since I heard God whisper to my heart that this was the school for him. I know it’s the right place. He will do amazing studying film and screenwriting. He has been interested in making movies his whole life. He will make friends, have fun, and go amazing places. Those are my hopes for him.

That thought is a heavy one, isn’t it? I think that feeling is one of the hardest things about being a single parent. There is no back-up. There is no one to share the schedule or the routines or the decision-making. I’m it. I’m it for rules, for home maintenance, for budgeting, for meal planning, for parenting wisdom, and for all the other stuff. The buck stops here.

One of the places it is most complicated is in trying to handle the tension between work and home lives. Our society doesn’t have a great track record for supporting single, working parents. Our employers expect us to give more and more and often don’t understand that you simply have no more to give when you are the only one to attend sporting events, concerts, after-school pick-up, appointments, and just to be present in the lives of your children as their childhood slowly evaporates. Employers often just don’t get it.

So how do you handle this when you need that job? How do you juggle it all without letting your kids suffer or not doing your best as an employee? That’s a tough one. As a single mom, I’ve had to wrestle with this again and again. There are a few things I’ve discovered and determined that might help you as you strive to find a balance to this tension as a single mom or dad: